Cara Black - AL05 - Murder in Clichy

“Only if I want to lose my job,” she said. “We’ve had so much trouble with scandals concerning provenance and authenticity, I’m afraid there’s little I could do, even if I wanted to help. The archives are kept on the outskirts of Paris. I’ve never even been there.”

If she could find out where, Aimée thought quickly, could she bribe a guard? “Where’s that?”

“On the île de la Jatte, but don’t get any ideas,” Madame Monsour said. “Even I’m not allowed inside. It’s a secured facility.”

“Then how can I find out more concerning the mystical attributes of the jade?”

“Where you should have looked in the first place, Mademoiselle,” Madame Monsour said, handing the catalogue back to Aimée. “At the Musée Cernuschi. They have a marvelous Chinese art collection. And a well-respected Asian art curator, Professor Dinard.”

Madame Monsour’s phone rang. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Aimée thanked her and left the drafty wet-wool smelling rooms of the Drouot. She pulled out her cell phone and made an appointment to meet the curator of the musée Cernuschi.

AIMÉE STOOD outside the Second Empire–style Musée Cernuschi located on the border of the seventeenth. The museum had a mansard roof, and its façade, veneered with white stone, was topped by a frieze of mosaic faces encircled by gold and overlooked chic Parc Monceau. Puddles flooded the street lined with nineteenth-century mansions on which it stood. She hoped Dinard would elucidate the jade’s provenance and know who might have put them up for auction .

On the museum’s ground floor, a calligraphy exhibition, delicate, wisplike black brush strokes like trailing smoke on thick rice paper, caught her eye. Ethereal and beautiful.

“Everyone calls it ‘rice paper,’ ” a docent was saying to a small group of visitors by the display. “Yet this paper, made from kozo, a plant prized in China and renowned for its strength, is also used by the Japanese for currency. Its appearance of delicacy is misleading.”

Monsieur Dinard’s assistant, whose name was Tessier according to the nameplate on his desk in the front office, was a tall thirtyish man with small close-set eyes and a prominent nose. He gestured toward a suite of office rooms.

“He’s got an appointment soon,” Tessier said. “But he’ll see you for a few minutes. Go ahead.”

Aimée knocked on Professor Dinard’s door. A stout middle-aged man, with a flushed complexion, round glasses, black hair— too black to be natural—and sporting a bow tie with his tweed suit, opened the door. The high-ceilinged room beyond displayed a blue silk Chinese rug on the floor. Carved details in the woodwork, picked out in gold and ivory, framed the walls.

“Professor Dinard?” she asked. “I’m Aimée Leduc. Thank you for seeing me.”

“Désolé , I regret that I can only spare you a few minutes,” he said, smiling and glancing at his watch. “But I’m happy to help if I can.”

“I’m fascinated by the mystical qualities of jade,” she said.

“But Mademoiselle, you don’t have to stand here. Come in, please,” he said, his smile wider. “Come inside, please sit down.” He showed her to a straight-backed provincial cherrywood chair. His round, smiling face was welcoming.

“Professor, you’re pressed for time so I’ll get to the point. Can you tell me about these pieces?”

She passed the Drouot catalogue across his matching cher-rywood desk, bare except for a single white orchid in a Ming vase. He nodded, then looked up at her, his eyes magnified by his glasses.

“What do you want to know? And why?”

He seemed suspicious but she she had to take a chance. “Someone showed me this jade collection, Professor,” she said, leaning forward. “If these pieces were looted during the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, why would they turn up now? Who might have consigned them for auction?”

Professor Dinard stared at her. “What magazine do you write for, Mademoiselle?”

“None. I’m a detective,” she said. “Here’s my card.”

He studied it. She saw a slight tremor in his hand.

“Forgive my inquisitiveness, but where did you see this collection?”

So far he’d posed questions and answered none. “I’m not at liberty to say right now.”

His fixed stare behind his round glasses disconcerted her.

“Why play cat and mouse, Professor?” she asked. “You’re the jade expert. Madame Monsour from Drouot recommended I speak with you. What can you tell me about this jade.”

He shook his head.

Didn’t her taxes go to pay for this City of Paris supported museum? And his salary? But she didn’t say that.

“Fascinating. But I’d have to study these pieces more carefully,” he said. “Do research. Say two days. Give me the pieces, and I’ll do a thorough investigation.”

Before she could reply, she noticed a black Renault pulling up outside. Several men in suits emerged. One was Pleyet. What was he doing here? Was the RG still on the scent of the jade?

Dinard stared at the open catalogue in his hand. “You haven’t told me how you obtained these jade pieces.”

So he thought she had them. She’d never said that. Had she implied it? No, she was sure she had not. Yet he seemed to know the pieces had been stolen by someone. And he thought it was her.

“Plundering destroys archeological sites,” Professor Dinard said, sadly. “Whatever value looted objects possess diminishes to almost nothing without a provenance, a documented history attached. A terrible shame, of course.”

Did he think she was here to unload the jade? “Professor, I need your expertise.”

Professor Dinard opened his drawer and pulled out something, a small crocodile-leather glasses case. He took off his glasses and put them inside.

Before he could speak, a woman’s voice came over the intercom, “Your appointment’s arrived.”

“You’re in the art world, Professor. Don’t you have any idea as to who might have put the jade figures up for auction?”

“I’m a museum director,” he said. “Show me the pieces and I can give you my opinion. Otherwise there’s no way I can help you.”

“Do you think I want to sell them?” she said. “You don’t seem to understand—”

“I’ll see you out,” he said, motioning her to the door.

Confront the RG again? No reason for Pleyet to know her investigations had brought her here.

She scanned the room. Only the window. “Please, isn’t there another way out?”

“Why Mademoiselle? Please use the door.”

Didn’t these old hôtels particuliers have water closets cleverly concealed in panels flush with the wood?

Something behind his glasses had changed. Compassion or—

The office door opened. “Your appointment’s here, Professor.”

She had to find a way to leave without Pleyet seeing her. Maybe Dinard would make a deal.

“ Bon, Professor, I’ll show you,” she said, playing for time. “I only carried this piece with me.” She put the small jade disk in his hand.

For a moment he held it, his eyes half-closed, and rubbed it. It was almost like a caress. Then holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he lifted it to the light. A luminescent river-green hued orb held their gazes. Amazingly it seemed to change, the color varying each time she looked at it.

Exquisite.

“Mademoiselle, the tiny dragon etched in the jade is a motif. . . . It is part of a larger pattern. Some of the images common to the period would be clouds, or a phoenix. But unless you have all the pieces together, you cannot see the pattern. This is part of a set, but only a part. The whole. . . .”

Now she’d hooked him.

“Do we have a deal, Professor?”